Filmmaker, actor, writer Ezra J. Stanley is a busy multitalented artist. Within the past year he has won numerous awards and recognition for his cinematic commercials. He's celebrating his recent selection as one of the world's Hot New Directors for 2010 by SHOOT Magazine!

A native of San Francisco, with parents of Belize, his father of Mayan descent, and mother of Garifuna (black Carib) descent allow for his extraordinarily versatile onscreen portrayals. Since the age of six and throughout his career, he's been cast as Native American, Latino, African American, and Filipino. At the same time he worked as a voiceover artist doing his many accents, impersonations, and characters for video games and commercials.

Growing up, his education was always more important to him than entertaining. He tested into the prestigious magnet Lowell High School where he developed an interest in consciousness and artificial intelligence in computer programming. His interest carried over into college and placed him in the Computer Science program at SFSU. Yet artificial intelligence was not enough, and he moved from Computer Science to SFSU's lauded Cinema Department where he could create life on screen. There he overindulged in courses in film theory and often repeated them to obsessively study just a bit more, ultimately receiving a BA in Cinema. He later co-founded AboveGrey Pictures with classmate turned producer/cinematographer Alejandro Wilkins. The two now work closely producing high concept narrative music videos, commercials, and films. Ezra J won the Best Commercial Award for Levi's "Post-Mortem" at the 2009 Burbank International Film Festival. His American Express "Traveler" commercial was also chosen as an Official Selection. He is the winner of the Best Spec Commercial Award Runner-up at the 2010 BEfilm Festival (New York City). He most recently had his debut in SHOOT Magazine's 2010 New Directors Showcase, held at the Director's Guild of America theater (New York City). He's designed and directed benefit concerts to entertain audiences that number into the thousands, including shows for the United Nations, the American India Foundation, and TiEcon. Ezra J Stanley's eclectic life has led him to extend his writing talents beyond films. He is the author of the racy experimental novel How to Enjoy Life on Earth by Wise King Solomon, which he completed before his twenty-first birthday.

You can catch Ezra J portraying historical figure Jonathan Jackson opposite CSI's Gary Dourdan as his brother George Jackson in Black August from Warner Bros.

Stanley splits his time between traveling for work, and his home in San Francisco. When he's not crafting the next cool thing, you can almost guarantee he's out surfing, motorcycling, or dissecting films.